Red Boxing Gloves

Made for boxing, not for typing.

"You are RED Team. You have Killing Gloves of Boxing. You earn these for being great killer! You should try out for RED Team."

—Heavy Weapons Guy to Strong Bad, Poker Night at the Inventory

Even in the less politically correct era of animation long gone, the pioneers of animation thought that using boxing gloves instead of bare fists lowered the level of violence. They were also much easier to draw, and easier to see. However, it has since been proven that because of the extra weight of boxing gloves and because they allow people to hit harder without hurting themselves, they actually cause more damage than they prevent.

At some point, boxing gloves came to be seen in a comedic light. Boxing gloves on big goofy springs replaced more harmful or deadly implements for all manner of reasons. To drive this point home, boxing gloves are always bright red for heightened visibility. Boxing gloves tend toward the bright red, anyway...

Compare with When All You Have Is a Hammer…. If the red boxing gloves are not directly on someone's fists, then this is Extendo Boxing Glove or Improbable Weapon Usage.

Boxing kangaroos are almost always shown wearing these.

Concealed red boxing gloves come under this, with the application of Fridge Logic and Hammerspace to hide something about a foot wide in, say, 5 inches of space. Yes, red boxing gloves in cartoons can get very oversized.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• The Digimon anime has these, from Togemon in the first season to Gaomon in Digimon Data Squad.
• The first Lupin III: Part II opening had the boxing glove on a spring. Lupin tries to dive on Fujiko in a bed and, well, falls for the "booby"-trapped "box", so to speak.
• FLCL would imitate the Lupin III example by having main character's father attempt the same thing. It went about as well for him.◊
• The third Sgt. Frog movie has Keroro whipping out the Kero Ball to salvage an emergency, then hitting a button, only for a boxing glove to come out of it and right into his own face.
• The Pokémon Hitmonchan and Poliwhirl either always have growths on their hands that cause them to resemble boxing gloves or always wear boxing gloves.
• In One Piece, during the final event of the Davy Back Fight, Luffy wears these when he faces off with Foxy.
  • Nami's "Thunder Tempo" is basically one of those extendo-boxing gloves shooting out of one of the Clima-Tact poles.
• G Gundam's Gundam Maxter can transform into a boxer mode, where its bright red shoulder pads move and transform into boxing gloves. This allows it much more powerful punching techniques.

Asian Animation

• In Motu Patlu, Boxer has such an affection for boxing that he wears red-colored boxing gloves literally all the time, even if he's doing basically anything besides boxing, such as driving his car.
• Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Uncle Huiertai, one of the wolves who sometimes works alongside Wolffy, wears a pair of red boxing gloves. At least once, it's shown that he can somehow hold objects with the boxing gloves on.

Comic Books

• Green Arrow has (in)famously used a Boxing Glove Trick Arrow.
• Both the Golden and Silver Age Green Lanterns have gone for the Big Green Boxing Glove for a quick KO.
• In the Carl Barks comic "Back to the Klondike", Scrooge McDuck's "burglar batterer" is a gigantic boxing glove that drops from the ceiling.
• A mysterious flying red boxing glove appears in the dada comic Pokey the Penguin. It first appears in Pokey and the Boxing Glove
• Hellboy's Right Hand of Doom might have been inspired by this...
• In Preacher, Jesse has to infiltrate a Caligula-level sex party. Among the people there is a dude with boxing gloves on, only they're not for boxing.

Films — Live-Action

• The Boxing Glove Mallet in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, with a red boxing glove at the end. Used by a cop, and again by Eddie Valiant.
• The Joker uses an extendable boxing glove device in Batman (1989). This glove is also red.
• The boxing glove bazooka in Hot Shots! Part Deux.
• The 1962 Lolita begins (in what's the story's end) with Humbert tracking Quilty to a cluttered mansion. Quilty, in a loopy drunken haze, tries playing a game of ping pong with the confronting Humbert, who pulls a gun. Quilty challenges him to go mano a mano, pulling on a pair of boxing gloves (there for lord knows what purpose) — he's carrying on comically until Humbert fires a shot. Quilty nervously mumbles "wow... right in the boxing glove!"
• Inspector Gadget (1999): Gadgetmobile does this to Gadget during their first meeting.
  Gadgetmobile: Don't make me go De La Hoya on you!
• Ultraman Cosmos: The First Contact provides a monster-sized version, when the SRC had to knock out the Don Dragon, a Non-Malicious Monster who had awoken from hibernation in a non-lethal manner, by deploying absolutely humungous boxing gloves from beneath their jets that can knock kaiju-sized targets out cold.

Live-Action TV

• Usually invoked when a mecha in Super Sentai relies on boxing in combat - Super Dekaranger Robo from Dekaranger and DaiVoyager from Boukenger may not have red fists, but RedPuncher from Ohranger and Datas Hyper in Tensou Sentai Goseiger do.
  • Boukenger's second movie upgraded DaiVoyager into Burning Legend DaiVoyager which, among other upgrades, turned DaiVoyager's fists a fiery red, playing the trope straight.
  • Non-mecha example: the Magi Punch weapon in Mahou Sentai Magiranger (later reused for Power Rangers Mystic Force) is basically a pair of red boxing gloves (with some gold trim).
• One of the Whammy animations from Press Your Luck has the Whammy as a boxer, chanting "Bring on Rocky, I want him", only to get hit by one of these (launched offscreen by someone, as indicated by the large spring coil on the back of the glove).
• Monty Python's Flying Circus: boxers with big reddish gloves appear in the boxing sketch (the one featuring Ken Clean Air System fighting Petula Wilcox) and in the confuse-a-cat sketch; not to mention the boxers who appear occasionally to knock people out for saying silly things (as an alternative to the knight in armor with the plucked chicken).

Pinballs

• Bally's Dr. Dude uses a spring-mounted boxing glove to knock out Big Shot.
  "Don't get mad, get even!"

Pro Wrestling

• During the "sports entertainment" era of Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling, Team No Respect booked Willie Williams in a mixed martial arts contest against a red boxing glove wearing Bad Boy Hido. Hido was hindered by them but did manage to apply a Fujiwara arm bar despite them.

Toys

• The short-lived XEVOZ modular action-figure line features interchangeable body parts and weapons, including "gag parts" that fly in the face of the general action theme — the Razorclaw figure includes boxing glove hands.
• There is a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toy which is basically a cartoonified UH-1 Huey helicopter gunship, but with reciprocating boxing gloves on the ends of the landing skids. It may make it into the series. Here◊ is a pic of the thing.
• At least one Joker toy from each wave of Batman figures has to come with a boxing glove weapon. The first Harley Quinn figure does, too. Even in a toyline based on The Dark Knight, they still have to give the Joker a boxing glove bazooka, with the card back proudly declaring, "He deals a mean right!"
• The toyline that accompanied the WB movie Space Jam had each Looney Toon banded with some toon prop that was never in the movie. Bugs Bunny himself came with a skateboard that had a red boxing glove mounted on it.
• See the Super Sentai examples above. All those mecha are available in toy form, and kidsize Magi Punch gloves have also been made.
• Big Boa from the original G.I. Joe toyline. He was a Cobra operative with a pair of red boxing gloves with the Cobra-insignia on the back. [1]◊ Interestingly, the mold is reused to make a Balrog figure◊ later on, with gloves retained.
• The Mask had a figure called "Howlin' Wolf Mask", which came with a bazooka that was armed with a boxing glove. Squeezing the bulb on the back of the bazooka fired the glove. Interestingly enough, one of the Joker figures made by Kenner as part of 1989's "Dark Knight Collection" carried this accessory.
• IQ from James Bond Jr. came with a flip-up boxing glove under his lab coat. Flipping a switch on his back caused it to pop up.

Video Games

• The final unlock of the first two Ape Escape games is a bright red boxing glove mounted on an extendable lattice, called the Magic Punch.
• One of Spring Man's default arms in ARMS is the Toaster; a red boxing glove that does fiery damage to an opponent.
• A spring-mounted boxing glove appears in Day of the Tentacle, which is powerful enough to knock a main character across the room. Fortunately she was a bit loopy to start with.
• Daze Before Christmas has living clothe-racks as enemies, who wears red boxing gloves on their spindly arms and extending them to attack Santa when he's close enough.
• Dusty Raging Fist have kangaroo enemies wearing Red Boxing Gloves who attacks with punches. All of them except the last one, who is a Unique Enemy kangaroo wearing studded gloves instead.
• Spring-loaded ones may sometimes be in the "X" blocks in Clown Man's stage of Mega Man 8.
• In some of the Metal Slug games, while crouching, the male characters use a spring-loaded boxing glove in their backpacks, rather than a knife.
• Akihiko's boxing gloves are red in Persona 3. However, the color can be changed if you change weapons (it just isn't likely).
• Hitmonchan in Pokémon games has them the same as in anime and Poliwhirl has white ones. The former is primarily fighting type and while the latter's main focus is Making a Splash, he can learn fighting, too.
• Averted in Punch-Out!!: Little Mac's gloves are green. Zig-zagged a bit in the 2009 Wii release, as his gloves are a different color depending on what circuit the player is in. He wears the aforementioned green gloves in the minor circuit, light blue gloves in the Major Circuit, red gloves in the World Circuit (the only time the trope is played straight), and golden gloves in Title Defense. Played straight with some CPU opponents, such as Glass Joe, Bear Hugger and Bald Bull (who wear them both in the Contender and Title Defense bouts), as well as Donkey Kong.
  • The game's Title Defense mode gives Aran Ryan a boxing glove whip. How nobody calls him out for it is anyone's guess. The glove on the whip is purple (the ones he's wearing are a light green).
• Rival Schools' Tiffany wears over-sized boxing gloves as a part of her cheerleading/fighting costume.
• Red boxing gloves on springs are one of the weapons in a battle game in Super Monkey Ball.
• Knuckles from the Sonic the Hedgehog series might count as a variation: his gloves are in the shape of boxing gloves, but they're white; Knuckles himself is red.
  • In Sonic Adventure 2, one of Dr. Eggman's close-range attacks is a boxing glove on a spring.
  • In Sonic Battle, Tails and Amy each use boxing gloves in one of their attacks (Amy just punches wearing them, Tails summons one on an extending spring).
• Spinmaster have a power-up that turns your default projectiles into red boxing gloves.
• Balrog (M. Bison in Japan) from Street Fighter wears a pair of red boxing gloves.
  • His Spiritual Successor Dudley in Street Fighter III has blue ones.
• The game based on The Mask has the title character wearing those in his punch attack, given he's basically a real life cartoon.
• Taz: Wanted has these as "Whack-in-the-Boxes", which must be disabled before destroying them.
• In Wario: Master of Disguise, Wario can use one attached to a spring as part of his Genius disguise.
• The second boss in Wario Land: Shake It! had Wario using a red boxing glove on a spring attached to a unicycle to attack him (or more precisely, knock spanners and tires at the boss and smash up his race car). There was also an enemy in Super Mario Sunshine that was just a red boxing glove on a spring, and that just knocked him off a ledge or the like.
• Ricky in The Legend of Zelda: Oracle Games wears these. In fact, they are his Iconic Item and in both games, you have to retrieve them before he will help you.
• The Joker uses the already-mentioned extendo Boxing Glove in Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe.
• These spring up in some sillier racing games as an attack, such as in Looney Tunes's Space Race; here it's the ammo for a pistol. The schematics show that the punch goes "that way very fast".
• Gato in Chrono Trigger attacks with one of these mounted on an extender in its chest. Justified since it's a training robot and not meant to slaughter the happy citizens who take their chances.
• A pair of red boxing gloves are available as a community weapon in PAYDAY 2.
• As a Boxing Kangaroo, Roger and his wife from the Tekken series wear these; his son wears yellow gloves, and Palette Swap Alex wears blue. Somehow they're able to use Professional Wrestling grapples with them.
• One of these is described as a penalty for guessing the wrong password in the RPG Wasteland. Rather odd appearance in the after-the-end genre.
• In Team Fortress 2, The Heavy unlocks a pair of boxing gloves as a Melee weapon, replacing his fists. While they're slower then the fists, every kill you make with them guarantees 5 seconds of Critical Hits, allowing the Heavy to go on a spree of killer uppercuts. They're called the Killing Gloves of Boxing, which is also Fun with Acronyms; The Heavy is Russian, and the KGB was the Russian CIA. More recently, he also got the Gloves of Running Urgently (GRU), which have flames painted on them and make him run faster.
  • This comes full circle in Poker Night at the Inventory, when the Heavy finally meets Strong Bad himself, much to the latter's frustration.
• Several pairs of red boxing gloves can be found in Fallout 2, in New Reno. They're the only weapon you're allowed to bring into the ring if you take up prizefighting. The regular gloves follow suit fairly well, as they do minimal damage. The plated gloves, on the other hand, packs a little surprise...
  • Fallout: New Vegas brings back the Boxing Gloves (they're brown), which make non-lethal takedowns much easier. Those who don't like the gloves can opt for Handwraps of Awesome instead. There are also golden versions found in the Lucky 38, which are improved versions of the regular thing.
• In Final Fantasy VII, Barret gets one as a melee-range weapon for his gun arm, called the Rocket Punch. It functions as his materia-slotless but more physically powerful weapon.
• Dizzy from the 8-bit games. Though they don't exactly look like ones, there is a textbox in the third game that proves that yes, he is indeed wearing boxing gloves.
• One of the costume sets unlocked as a veteran reward (given for time in play) in City of Heroes is a boxing set that naturally includes Red Boxing Gloves.
• League of Legends features Blitzcrank, a magical/mechanical golem. At least two of his skins have him wearing large Red Boxing Gloves over his large hands (he is still able to grab with those).
• Rainbow Islands features boxing gloves on springs as enemies on Toy Island. They're purple to begin with, but that's because they turn red when antagonised.
• In Felix the Cat for the NES, Felix starts out with a red boxing glove. (This is also in the Game Boy version, except that the Game Boy can't show red.)
• Mario Superstar Baseball has Donkey Kong use a red boxing glove instead of a baseball bat, punching balls pitched to him. The sequel has other Donkey Kong characters using non-standard items in the place of a baseball bat, most notably Funky Kong using a surfboard.
• Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U :The aforementioned Little Mac appears, and wears differently colored gloves depending on his costume (but they're still green by default). Played straight in Villager's neutral attack, though.
• Super Smash Bros. Ultimate introduces King K. Rool, the Kremling Kommander who dons his bright red gloves from Donkey Kong 64 during forward smash attacks, and also uses them in the trailer to connect with DK's fist.
• Streets of Rage: R. Bear, the Level 5 Boss in the second game, wears a pair of boxing gloves, giving you an obvious clue what to watch out for during the fight. Instead of boxer shorts, his outfit is a striped dockworker's shirt, overalls, and bare feet, bringing to mind early 20th century pugilism.
• A minor recurring Kirby Mini-Boss is Iron Mam, a squat, armored pugilist whose default palette features red spheres for hands, meant to evoke boxing gloves. Fittingly enough, you can copy the Fighter ability off her.

Web Animation

• One can shudder to think of how brutally Strong Bad of Homestar Runner could make fun of names and spelling errors, if he didn't have to type through his boxing gloves.

Webcomics

• Punchgirl of The Incredible and Awe-Inspiring Serial Adventures of the Amazing Plasma-Man has red boxing gloves as part of her super-hero costume.

Western Animation

• The Joker from Batman, more so for the DC Animated Universe version, along with his sidekick Harley Quinn. It goes wrong one time when Harley tries to headshot Supergirl with a boxing glove gun, and it rebounds off Kara's head harmlessly to score a direct hit on Harley herself.
• In the Classic Disney Short Magician Mickey, Donald Duck fights with a cactus sporting boxing gloves.
  • In another cartoon, Clown of the Jungle, the Aracuan Bird gets Donald with spring-loaded boxing gloves that come out of his sunglasses.
• Cartoon kangaroos often wear them, as part of the Boxing Kangaroo stereotype.
• In an episode of Home Movies, Brendon's grandpa has boxing gloves and offers to teach Brendon to fight. Brendon is understandably hesitant but grandpa's repeatedly goading him with girly name-calling gets him to get in some punches. And grandpa lined the gloves with ball bearings for extra "oomph". Painfully, awkwardly funny.
• On Beavis And Butthead, the duo practice for mud wrestling by making a mudpit in their front yard, wearing biking tops, and smacking each other with a baseball bat that has a boxing glove on the end. It is just as amazing as it sounds.
• The Tex Avery MGM short "Lonesome Lenny" uses the old 'loaded boxing glove' bit punching Screwy Squirrel. He grabs the glove and shakes out a horseshoe...then three more...and the horse from which they came.
• In the VeggieTales video "Dave and the Giant Pickle", Goliath comes out to fight Dave with big red boxing gloves. Which float in the air because he doesn't have hands.
• Mr. Bogus wears these in the third act of the episode "Shop Around The Clock" while sparring against a toy kangaroo in the toy store.
• The Patrick Star Show: Patrick wears red gloves when boxing in "A Root Galoot" and "Stuntin'".

Real Life

• Actually, some studies have been shown that a person will do MORE damage with boxing gloves for a few reasons. A person is much less likely to hold back for fear of hurting themselves, or the other person, thinking the gloves will protect them. The padding of the glove distributes the force of impact across more area, like an AOE attack in an MMO. Boxing gloves exist primarily to prevent the fists from getting damaged (human face bones are strong, hand bones are weak, and the face sports many inconvenient angles to break your hand on). They do reduce the chance of blood from facial cuts, but they increase the risk of brain damage. One of the reasons they eschew traditional boxing gloves in UFC is that it's safer (well, that and they'd make grappling a bitch).
• The number of boxers killed before the introduction of gloves was negligible (a handful of recorded cases). This number exploded with the introduction of gloves, because you could now punch opponents in the face repeatedly without breaking your hand. Furthermore, the way force is transferred through the glove increases the stress on the brain (read: brain damage and fatal aneurysms). Some sources estimate the death rate of bareknuckle boxing at about 14,000 deaths per million participants, and of modern professional boxing at less than 80 deaths per million participants. Of course, brain damage isn't necessarily death...
  • When original (non-red) boxing gloves were introduced, the rate of deaths went up dramatically due to the extra padding that allowed a change in tactics. Boxers discovered that they could now throw what was essentially a spinning backfist and the padding would keep them from breaking the bones in the back of the hand. So the most efficient way for a quick knockout was to aim to land a spinning backfist to the temple of the opponent, which was often lethal.
• The (heavy, metal) counterweight on the Pluto Telescope at Lowell Observatory has a red boxing glove attached to the end, to reduce the risk of injury if someone bumps into it in the dark. A possibly apocryphal story says that one scientist there, a skilled amateur boxer, gave himself a black eye by running into the counterweight one night, and his colleagues put the glove on it to help ensure he would Never Live It Down.
• Although many colors of glove do exist, red is possibly the most common in professional fights and certainly the most iconic.

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